The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) provides various human rights education courses both online and offline in a bid to expand human rights education opportunities.
Prevention is the best remedy for human rights violations and discriminations. In this respect, human rights education contributes to the long-term prevention of human rights abuses and building societies where human rights are respected and valued by making sure that people learn about human rights and understand human rights issues, acquire skills and abilities to defend their human rights.
The public survey conducted by the NHRCK in 2011 shows the public shares the necessity of human rights education as 89.4 percent of respondents said that human rights education is necessary and 87 percent said that public officers should be required to take human rights educations courses.
In fact, demand for human rights education by the public sector and educational institutions is on the rise. However, only about 1 percent (550,000 persons) of the nation’s total population has participated in the human rights education programs carried out by the NHRCK since its establishment in 2001.
The Cyber Human Rights Education Center (edu.humanrights.go.kr) opened to increase access to human rights education runs a total of 6 courses that are open to the whole public as well as public officers.
The education courses currently available on the website include the introduction to human rights, human rights and public administration, prevention of disability discrimination and sexual harassment, and the introduction to the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination of Disabled Persons. This year the introduction to discriminations, military and human rights will be included in the curricula.
The number of people who took the online and offline educational courses of the NHRCK in 2012 is 124,937, up by 9 percent from 20011 when 114,097 people finished the courses. With the increasing demand for human rights education by the NHRCK, the commission is going to set up human rights education system accessible via smart phones and tablet PCs.
The NHRCK plans to expand its human rights education to reach out to journalists and lawmakers who play an important role in protecting and promoting human rights of our society. Also, our commission is going to place priority on human rights education for business enterprises in order to help companies incorporate human rights into their management as their influence on human rights are substantial. On top of that, our commission is planning to extend its educational courses with focus on human rights information and the usage of remedies to the vulnerable groups of people such as North Korean defectors, homeless persons, the elderly, disabled persons, students etc.
